Driver Station Laptop

[electroken]

This year we used an Acer Aspire One netbook running Windows 10 on an Intel Atom and it did everything we asked of it. We did not do image processing on the driver station. As far as I know, nobody had to wait for our driver station to reboot. That netbook runs the driver station, smart dashboard, and nothing else.

[bkahl]

A few recommendations for ALL Drive station laptops after spending a few seasons in High School behind the glass.

1) SSD. Reasons stated above.

2) Put Drivers Station and any dashboard you need in Startup. A reboot with an SSD and these files booting right away will allow connection and reconnection to a robot MUCH faster.

3) Touchscreen. While this may be a stretch for some- it can be really simple for enabling and disabling for ANYONE (not everyone knows hotkeys) and also makes log viewing really quick and easy.

4) NOTHING unnecessary on the laptop. There's no reason to have browsers or anything if you never connect it to the internet. (Never connect a DS to the internet......)

5) Webcam- while it's likely to never come back... You don't want to be the only one unable to do a 'Cheesy Vision'-esque program for auton if it does and your USBs may be getting full.

6) at least 3/4 USB ports. Allows up to 3 joysticks/controllers to be connected directly to the laptop while maintaining quick tethering via USB.

7) Ethernet Port- obvious

8) use it ONLY as a drivers station- kind of ties in with 4, but keeping the drivers station pristine will allow for peak performance.

9)Good Trackpad- a good trackpad will make quick troubleshooting easier and will make every FTA or CSA that has to help you much happier.

All of these are nice but the most neccessary ones to me are 1,2,4,6,7


At the end of the day, I don't think RAM or Processing power is as important as some of these and these can all(besides maybe touchscreen) definitely be found in a low budget, refurbed laptop.

Also- don't be afraid to buy a laptop for upgrade. I'm sure there's a student on most teams who can upgrade RAM a bit or throw an SSD in a laptop.

[adciv]

Originally Posted by bkahl

4) NOTHING unnecessary on the laptop. There's no reason to have browsers or anything if you never connect it to the internet. (Never connect a DS to the internet......)

Browser is required to connect to roboRIO web interface. This should be kept.

As a note, reading you reminded me of something. When the laptop is no longer useful as a driver station (typically due to physical wear out) it may still be useful for programming.

[euhlmann]

Originally Posted by bkahl

4) NOTHING unnecessary on the laptop. There's no reason to have browsers or anything if you never connect it to the internet. (Never connect a DS to the internet......)

8) use it ONLY as a drivers station- kind of ties in with 4, but keeping the drivers station pristine will allow for peak performance.

I have to disagree. Our drive laptops (old ones fitted with SSDs) are also our primary programming laptops and have been used for other things in the past, including CAD. The point being, they're overloaded with software but we experienced no issues due to startup time or slowness (the SSDs really help)
Anyway there's no point having drive laptops separate from programming laptops - it's easier to have the tools all in one place

[bkahl]

Originally Posted by adciv

Browser is required to connect to roboRIO web interface. This should be kept.

Ya got me there.

Was more aiming at refraining from browsing the Web on a DS Laptop.

Originally Posted by euhlmann

I have to disagree. Our drive laptops (old ones fitted with SSDs) are also our primary programming laptops and have been used for other things in the past, including CAD. The point being, they're overloaded with software but we experienced no issues due to startup time or slowness (the SSDs really help)
Anyway there's no point having drive laptops separate from programming laptops - it's easier to have the tools all in one place

I said in the post that not all of the list is necessary.

Though, I have found that having clutter around a desktop or memory device can be disruptive. Write and read times also take longer as an SSD fills up. I'll take every split second of boot time I can get on a Driver's Station Laptop.

I have also found that programmers usually prefer programming on their personal laptops- its easier to work at home.

To each, their own.

[MamaSpoldi]

Originally Posted by euhlmann

I have to disagree. Our drive laptops (old ones fitted with SSDs) are also our primary programming laptops and have been used for other things in the past, including CAD. The point being, they're overloaded with software but we experienced no issues due to startup time or slowness (the SSDs really help)
Anyway there's no point having drive laptops separate from programming laptops - it's easier to have the tools all in one place

I strongly disagree with this statement. It is definitely preferable to have the programming separate from the driverstation. The single most important reason is that I have seen many driverstations take a dive at competition (ie. get knocked off the field shelf or in pit onto the concrete floor). If that is also your programming laptop you are going to be very sad. A second very good reason is that it gives the programmers the opportunity to analyze code assessing issues that have been observed and possibly working to fix them while the drivers are in queue. Of course, we always want the whole team to be watching the matches, but sometimes having the option to be working on a fix or a needed feature is a very good option to have available.** And a third reason is that as you will likely have the driverstation software loaded on the programming laptop, in an emergency it could be used as a backup driverstation (so if my first reason bites you... you will have a backup).

** [Before anyone suggests that the software work can be done on the driverstation in queue if they are loaded on the same computer, I would like to note that although I recognize that many teams do it, I definitely do not condone or encourage the idea of making coding changes in the queue line because you cannot test those changes before going onto the field. A big no-no for reliability.]

[euhlmann]

Originally Posted by MamaSpoldi

The single most important reason is that I have seen many driverstations take a dive at competition (ie. get knocked off the field shelf or in pit onto the concrete floor). If that is also your programming laptop you are going to be very sad.

Nothing some velcro can't fix (That's why there were matching velcro strips on the driver stations).

Originally Posted by MamaSpoldi

And a third reason is that as you will likely have the driverstation software loaded on the programming laptop, in an emergency it could be used as a backup driverstation (so if my first reason bites you... you will have a backup).

We just have 2 laptops, which are both for driving and programming.

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by euhlmann

Nothing some velcro can't fix (That's why there were matching velcro strips on the driver stations).

Not always. One of our matches this year, our driver station was knocked off the shelf even with velcro. The hit was so bad that they apparently moved the alliance wall by like 3 inches. Luckily we caught it, but nothing is a substitute for having spares.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by ASD20

Not always. One of our matches this year, our driver station was knocked off the shelf even with velcro. The hit was so bad that they apparently moved the alliance wall by like 3 inches. Luckily we caught it, but nothing is a substitute for having spares.

What sort of velcro were you using? The white industrial stuff is what we used and I could barely take the laptop off the velcro in the beginning. We took a good amount of nasty hits and never had the laptop even budge.

I also should mention a laptop like a ThinkPad with an ssd in it is fairly resistant to a drop from that height. The big failure mode of a laptop in schock scenarios is a failed hard drive since it's a mechanical part. Because ssds are flash based they can take a hit and function fine.

Regardless a spare laptop for programming is nice but if your on a budget it's not even close to necessary. I always have my laptop at competitions and it has a copy of everything we would ever need but we have never had to use it.

[MamaSpoldi]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

What sort of velcro were you using? The white industrial stuff is what we used and I could barely take the laptop off the velcro in the beginning. We took a good amount of nasty hits and never had the laptop even budge.

I also should mention a laptop like a ThinkPad with an ssd in it is fairly resistant to a drop from that height. The big failure mode of a laptop in schock scenarios is a failed hard drive since it's a mechanical part. Because ssds are flash based they can take a hit and function fine.

Regardless a spare laptop for programming is nice but if your on a budget it's not even close to necessary. I always have my laptop at competitions and it has a copy of everything we would ever need but we have never had to use it.

We also had very secure velcro on our driverstation and it never fell off on the field... but in the queuing area at Champs it was very crowded and our driverstation hit the concrete hard. It survived for those matches, but it does have residual damage and will be replaced. My point it simply that it can happen and you don't want to be without a backup option.